<p>Hey, I'll take the opinions of 110,000 college students, unrandomly selected, over a bunch of deans who have never been within 2,000 miles of the institutions they are ranking any day.</p>
<p>Of course, larger schools have more opportunities to scam the list.</p>
<p>(Ekitty - I taught undergrads at UChicago, and know lots of folks at Reed. PR ranks the academic quality of both as the same - I would have said the same thing. It ranks the quality of campus life at Reed as higher than UChicago, and I would have said the same thing. It ranks both selectivity and financial aid the same - and I would have said the same thing. The differences between Macalester and Reed are tiny, except that financial aid is stronger at Mac - and I would have said the same thing. At the top of the list, we are looking at tiny, tiny differences. When you get down to Harvard, the differences become a little larger - but here again, there is outside corroboration. Of the 33 COFHE consortium schools - all the Ivies and top LACs and a few others, H. ranks consistently near the bottom of the student surveys in student satisfaction, both in quality of campus life and academic quality - students say the same thing in PR.)</p>
<p>Enjoy, have fun! Get your applications into Carleton!</p>
<p>Mini, 2000 miles east of Chicago lands you in the Atlantic Ocean and 2000 miles west of of Chicago lands you in the Pacific. I would home that the deans of schools in teh Midwest have never studied 2000 miles away! </p>
<p>Secondly, university deans and professors know everything about universities. They are experts. Most of them have been students and employees of at least 4 or 5 different universities and have worked closely with students and professors of dozens of universities. Check the Bios of any dean, school president of professor. Open any university texbook and look at the acknowledgements. You will always see PhD students and professors from dozens of universities accross the nation. It is a fact that they know more about jniversities than anybody else.</p>
<p>How can a student that only knows her/his own university be a reliable judge without having a common frame of reference?</p>
<p>Quote: "I'll take the opinions of 110,000 college students, unrandomly selected, "</p>
<p>"Unrandomly" may be the key word. Like one of the previous posters mentioned, if on-line suveys are used, one computer savvy responder could actually respond as 100,000 different users. This could really impact the results if he or she had an axe to grind against a particular school that may have rejected them! Ahh - the miracle of computers.........</p>
<p>I think I'll have my daughter (entering 8th grade) express an interest in Carleton now. Although I am still trying to figure out how a school in Minnesota could ever be so "hot"....</p>
<p>To add some fuel to this fire
this list statistically supports
that the Tri-College community of
Bryn Mawr, Haverford & Swarthmore
combined provides the opportunity
& scenario for the best undergraduate
experience overall. :>O</p>
<p>Swarthmore was ranked higher for academic quality than both Mac and Mt. Holyoke (same as Reed).</p>
<p>Lots of these numbers are confirmed by the COHFE numbers, which makes it quite clear that the Deans do NOT know what they are talking about. Harvard, for example, may have the highest peer ranking (a function of prestige and grad school faculty), but ranks 28th (among 33 schools in the Consortium, including all the Ivies, the major LACs, and others, in undergraduate satisfaction with academic quality), hence providing independent confirmation of the Princeton Review findings.</p>
<p>But there's more - take a look at the COFHE subscales:</p>
<p>"On the five-point scale, Harvard students gave an average score of 2.92 on faculty availability, compared to an average 3.39 for the other COFHE schools. Harvard students gave a 3.16 for quality of instruction, compared to a 3.31 for the other schools, and a 2.54 for quality of advising in their major, compared to 2.86 for the other schools."</p>
<p>Now, note, this was compared to the "average" of the 33 schools, not the top ones. The distance from the top is very large indeed. All the schools above - Mt Holyoke, Swarthmore, Macalester, Haverford, Bryn Mawr - consistently rank higher than Harvard for quality of undergraduate education, independent of perceptions of prestige. PR just confirms what the colleges' own consortium has found independently.</p>
<p>Mini, how many times have you posted the same list and pretend that it contains an ounce of intellectual integrity? </p>
<p>When you state that "Some folks have difficulty with their selectivity index. That's fine", you continue to ignore the fact that the ENTIRE methodology used by PR is a joke. The selectivity index is simply the easiest to debunk. Let's remember that PR decreed that UC-Davis is more selective than Chicago! </p>
<p>What makes your effort even more laughable is your deliberate attempt to "validate" your self-serving spiel by carefully selecting a small number of components used by PR and declaring your list to be a ranking of Top 50 Private UNDERGRADUATE Institutions.</p>
<p>Claiming that your list represents a ranking for selectivity, academic quality, quality of campus life, and financial aid/scholarships is utterly ridiculous.</p>
<p>Let's be clear: Mini did no ranking. Mini does no ranking. Mini does not believe in ranking. (And Mini never posted this list before, so he has no idea what you are talking about.)</p>
<p>Princeton Review did the ranking. They published their methodology. You can decide to like it, or you can decide not to. You can't deny that it is there.</p>
<p>The rankings they published, from the little we know, seem to be similar to the results of the comparative surveys undertaken by the Consortium of Financing of Higher Education, and paid for by 33 of the finest colleges and universities in the country, with more than 50% of student bodies participating. Harvard provides the data on their own university - which is courageous - and indicates that they rank 5th from the bottom of those institutions in academic quality. If that bugs you, you should take it up with Harvard - they believe in the methodology which produced it. If the PR methodology bugs you, take it up with PR. If USNWR bugs you, you know whom to contact.</p>
<p>In the meantime, I again strongly urge folks to get their ED applications into Carleton. Or Walla Walla, before deans actually begin trying to find it on a map. ;)</p>
<p>
[quote]
Harvard provides the data on their own university - which is courageous - and indicates that they rank 5th from the bottom of those institutions in academic quality.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not exactly. </p>
<p>Somebody at Harvard leaked a copy of a confidential internal Harvard report on the latest COFHE data to the Boston Globe.</p>
<p>Could have been the Hatfields; could have been the McCoys; could have been Cornel West; could have been Allen Dershowitz or somebody at the Law School looking to embarrass FAS; who knows? There's always somebody with an axe to grind in Boston and political maneuvering is a full-contact sport, here.</p>
<p>I swear you have posted this before. And when we posted REALISTIC selectivity numbers things changed considerably. You agreed, but I guess you must have forgot about this...</p>
<p>university deans and professors know everything about universities. They are experts>></p>
<p>Really? How many university deans and professors live in the typical dorm, or have even been in the typical dorm for more than five minutes? How many eat three meals a day in the cafeteria? How many stand on line waiting to register for classes? How many sit in on classes day after day and experience the joys and pains of being an undergraduate at a particular college? How many of them pay tuition? </p>
<p>Yes, college administrators are experts about how college administration, but the onlly people who really KNOW what it is like to be a student at a particular college are the actual students. It's fine for administrators to rate how each other's colleges are run (which is what the US News peer rating is) but believing that those ratings are an acurate reflection of the real day-to-day lives and experiences of STUDENTS is hogwash. </p>
<p>Consider this: you're looking for information about whether to buy a product or service. Whose opinion would you be most likely to listen to - the CEO's of competing companies who make similar products? Or other customers who actually USE the product? </p>
<p>Marketing research studies don't ask the CEO's of companies to rate each other's products - they ask consumers to rate them. I disagree with how the samples for the PR study is done, but the underlying principle is correct: if you want to know how happy students are with their college, you ask STUDENTS not administrators.</p>
<p>I just wanted to add that I am amused whenever someone posts a ranking or rating that doesn't conform to what people want to believe.
It seems as though there are a lot of people here who LOVE to hold up "rankings" or "ratings" as evidence of which school is better or best...but only when THEIR school is at the top of the list. </p>
<p>This is the reason why I say so often: Look beyond the rankings. Rankings are dependent on methodology. Use different methodology and you'll get a totally different list.</p>
<p>In the end, the ONLY ranking that matters is the one YOU develop, based on your individual needs and desires. It's fine to use other people's rankings as a data point, but you MUST look beyond that if you want to find the schools that are best for YOU.</p>
<p>All you have to do is organize a few students at your school to fill out the surveys and bingo, your school moves up in the rankings. If these kids have time to fill out these surveys, maybe they aren't busy enough. :)</p>
<p>I agree with Hanna. I have never understood why sitting in a classroom with twelve fellow students who don't know the material well is better than sitting in a large lecture hall with a professor who is an expert in the field. In my experience, I would take the latter class anyday.
You are only sitting in a classroom 15 hours a week. You have plenty of time to listen to fellow students' opinions outside of the classroom. </p>
<p>Writing classes are mandatory at most schools. After taking these and maybe a public speaking class or two, I don't get the class size thing.</p>
<p>Quote: "I just wanted to add that I am amused whenever someone posts a ranking or rating that doesn't conform to what people want to believe."</p>
<p>Maybe that's why there are so many people on cc who try to discredit the US News rankings. They may just not want to believe it if their school (s) of choice are not "ranked" high enough. :)</p>
<p>"In the end, the ONLY ranking that matters is the one YOU develop, based on your individual needs and desires. It's fine to use other people's rankings as a data point, but you MUST look beyond that if you want to find the schools that are best for YOU."</p>
<p>BINGO.</p>
<p>You need to make your own ranking. Take the data (literally or mentally) and weight them based on the criteria that are relevant to YOU.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Let's be clear: Mini did no ranking. Mini does no ranking. Mini does not believe in ranking. (And Mini never posted this list before, so he has no idea what you are talking about.)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Believable, as usual!</p>
<p>Posted on 03-08-2005, 04:27 PM #7<br>
mini
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Olympia, WA
Posts: 2,071 </p>
<p>So here are the Princeton Review ACTUAL rankings, an addition of their own scores for selectivity, academic quality, campus life, and scholarships/financial aid. In other words, this is what happens when they rely on their own ranking system. Make of them what you will (I'm sure you will ): (highest possible score is 396)</p>
<p>Carleton - 391
Amherst - 390
Smith - 390
Pomona - 390
Haverford - 390
Williams - 388
Stanford - 388
Mount Holyoke - 388
Reed - 388
Princeton - 387
Davidson - 387
Dartmouth -387
Swarthmore - 387
Bryn Mawr - 387
Wellesley - 387
Bowdoin - 386
Grinnell - 386
Chicago - 384
Harvard - 382
MIT - 381
Washington U. - 381
Brown - 380
Yale - 379
Wesleyan 379
Columbia - 377
Caltech - 376
Vanderbilt - 374
Cornell - 373
Northwestern - 372
Duke - 371
Penn - 371</p>
<h2>Have fun!</h2>
<p>Last edited by mini : 03-08-2005 at 04:36 PM.</p>
<p>Here's what I wrote back then...the new selectivity rankings are ABSOLUTELY flawed. My issue is that now Emory gets a 99 in selectivity tying it with Harvard!! Before these rankings were much more on target.</p>
<p>But Mini, selectivity DOES matter. It is a function of prestige and determines the strength of the student body. In a way it will determine where a student will go; i.e. the academics and life might be great at Earlham(?) but overall a rare person will chose that school over Princeton. My issue is that the new PR rankings are completely flawed in selectivity. </p>
<p>But when you assign reasonable selectivity numbers things work out differently. I am assigning these based on my opinions (since I cant find the old PR selectivity numbers which actually made sense), chime in if you disagree.</p>
<p>mini has posted this list i would say.....15-20 times.
mini is boringly repetitive.
mini has an obsession with blowing up LACs.
mini has a huge sense of inferiority and finds the need to defend LACs in every thread, even though most dont even mention LACs.
mini created this PR ranking through her own means, no where in the princeton review book does this ranking ever occur. </p>
<p>considering students at their own universities have most likely never been to another university, these rankings are no good. they arent comparing their school to any other but their own. it seems from this list that harvard students are the most critical (obviously top students are hard to please). cant say the same for carleton</p>